On This Day: August 10th
2012: In what was the performance of the Games, John Joe Nevin outhussled Cuban star Lazaro Alvarez to guarantee bantamweight silver at the London Olympics (Click here to watch). The 19-14 win, which also introduced us to the ;Mullingar Shuffle’ came following wins over Denmark’s Dennis Ceylan (21-6), Kazakh Kanat Abutalipov (15-10), and current WBO featherweight champ Oscar Valdez (19-13). The Cavan BC stylist would lose out in the final to Britain’s Luke Campbell (11-14).
1932: Garda boxer James J Murphy defeated US light heavyweight John Miler in the quarter finals of the Olympic Games. Sadly back then this was not good enough to guarantee bronze, and following injury in his semi final loss to Italian Gino Rossi, Murphy was forced to concede a walkover to Dane Peter Jorgensen in his box-off for bronze.
1966: Featherweight Paddy Maguire outpointed home fighter Harold West in the semi finals of the Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica. In the previous rounds the Belfast man had outpointed Scot Hugh Baxter and stopped Canadian Walter Johnston before losing himself in the final to Kenyan Philippe Waruinge.
1934: Carncastle’s Jimmy Magill claimed bronze at the 1934 British Empire Games (now known as the Commonwealth Games). The middleweight defeated a South African opponent in the medal box-off following a loss to England’s Alf Shawyer in the semi finals.
1920: Future light heavyweight World champ Mike McTigue lost his Canadian middleweight title in his second defence to Jeff Smith in Halifax. Smith, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013 had taken a newspaper decision over McTigue three year previously and outpointed him again here, but the Clare man would get his revenge in 1921, winning a fifteen-round decision at Madison Square Garden.
1946: Randalstown heavyweight Alex Woods inflicted a third round retirement on Derry’s Pat Duffy to win the inaugural BBBoC Northern Irish heavyweight title at the Ulster Hall in Belfast. Woods held the belt simultaneously with the NI light heavyweight title, but would lose his big man strap in 1948 against Paddy Slavin in what would be his last ever bout.
